PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

ENGLISH SCHOOL (18/19TH CENTURY)
Portrait of Sir Thomas Kitson (kytson) (1485-1540) Sheriff of London, half-length wearing robes and holding a book
inscribed S.THOMAS KYTSON/WHO BUILT HENGRAVE HOUSE/ SHERIFF OF LONDON/ IN THE RAIGNE OF HEN 8 (upper left/right)
oil on panel (cradled panel)
55 x 45 cm
Held in an 18th century Florentine carved gilded and pierced frame

PROVENANCE: Knight Frank & Rutley, Hengrave Hall estate sale, 1952 lot 1650 (as attributed to Jan Cornelius Vermeyen 1500-1559) and with accompanying sale catalogue
Private Collection

The present portrait is also attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 or 1498-1543) however only known as an engraving. see: (NPG D24330)

Thomas Kitson was the son of Robert Kitson (or Kytson) of Warton, Lancashire. His sister, Margaret Kitson, married John Washington, ancestor of George Washington.
Kitson was apprenticed to the London mercer and Merchant Adventurer, Richard Glasyer. He was admitted a freeman of the Mercers' Company in 1507, and served as Warden in 1525-26 and 1533-34 and as Master in 1534–35. He served as Sheriff of London in 1533–34, and was knighted on 30 May 1533 at the coronation of Anne Boleyn.
In May 1534, he was associated with Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in taking oaths of fealty from priests and monks. Kitson had financial dealings with the Crown on a large scale. By 1509, his mercantile transactions were already extensive, and, by 1534-35, only ten other merchants exported cloth in larger quantities.
He was a member of the Company of Merchant Adventurers until his death, and traded at the cloth fairs or staples held by the company at Antwerp, Middelburg, and elsewhere in Flanders.
Hengrave Hall, built by Sir Thomas Kitson
Kitson had a house in London on Milk Street with a chapel, a garden on Coleman Street, and a house and chapel in Stoke Newington. Like other wealthy London merchants he had a house in Antwerp. He also purchased properties in the counties of Devon, Dorset and Somerset, and in 1521 acquired from Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, for £2340, the manors of Hengrave in Suffolk and Colston Bassett in Nottinghamshire.

On the Duke's attainder and execution in the following year, Kitson was for a time deprived of the estates, but they were restored to him, confirmed by an Act of Parliament of 1524. He obtained a licence from Henry VIII to build an embattled manor house at Hengrave on a magnificent scale. The building was begun in 1525, and finished in 1538. A later inventory of the furniture and goods at Hengrave shows its extent and elegance. Kitson subsequently purchased several other manors in Suffolk from the crown. Besides Hengrave, he had houses at Westley and Risby in Suffolk.